


The Lost Boys

by kadollan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-04
Updated: 2011-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadollan/pseuds/kadollan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ron looked torn between confusion and irritation, which was not far off from how Harry was feeling, come to that. "Who's this Pan bloke?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lost Boys

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for ratherbsailing in the "hp_triangle fest" on LiveJournal. I used the prompt, "well established triad, and complications that arise because of it, can end sad or happy."
> 
> Many thanks to cybermathwitch who held my hand during this. You are an awesome beta.

Harry flinched when Hermione slammed the dirty frying pan back down on the counter. Ron, the bastard, was trying to slink out of the kitchen and leave Harry to deal with her wrath alone.

"I hate this! And I see you, Ronald - you can ruddy well get back in here. All I asked you two to do was clean the kitchen while I was gone! It's not as though I'd even mentioned the dirty laundry in the living room, or the mold growing in the bathroom!"

Ron and Harry had been listening to Quidditch on the wireless when Hermione had gotten home. She'd dropped the market bag and the container of pumpkin juice that she'd picked up in the middle of the floor and had started trying to clean up the mess. A bouquet of bright fall flowers peeked out of the bag, along with a baguette and some cheeses.

Harry picked the flowers up before they got crushed and set about trying to find a place to put them down. Now that he _looked_ at the room, he could see that it really was in terrible shape. The table was overrun with copies of the Prophet, bills, an owl from Ron's mum, and last night's curry take-away.

"Hermione, I'm-"

"Ron, don't you dare say you're sorry! I swear you two make me crazy! I'm tired of feeling like I'm Wendy living with the Lost Boys. Honestly!"

"That's hardly fair Hermione. We're not that bad." Harry was starting to get annoyed. Okay, she had asked them to clean up the kitchen, sure - and they'd even said they'd do it, but it wasn't as if she was their mum. They'd clean it up when they got to it, wouldn't they?

He would have sworn Hermione growled. "Shut it, Pan. You're both fully grown men. I shouldn't _have_ to nag you half to death to get you to pick up. This is your house! Do you actually _like_ living like this?"

Ron looked torn between confusion and irritation, which was not far off from how Harry was feeling, come to that. "Who's this Pan bloke?"

"Oh never mind! We cannot keep living like this. We just-" her breath hitched and Harry realized that she had tears in her eyes.

"Hermione. Sweetheart, why-?" Ron stepped forward, reaching towards her, but she waved him off.

"I just...I just wanted to be able to cook a nice dinner for once!" She was openly crying now.

Harry exchanged a confused look with Ron. The three of them had been living together for nearly three years now, and while Hermione had mentioned (on more than one occasion) that she'd prefer it if they kept their flat cleaner, she'd never reacted by crying about it before.

"Hermi-" Harry tried one more time.

"Just forget it! I'm going to Ginny's, alright? Just, leave me alone!"

Harry cursed when she disapparated, and Ron let out a low whistle. "What was that about?"

"Well, it was about we're pigs for one thing, but she knew that when she took us on. D'you think it's that time...?" Harry let the question dangle.

Ron's ears reddened. "Shouldn't think so mate, no little red check marks on the calendar in the loo." The two shared and awkward silence, broken by Ron clearing his throat. "Well, anyway. It _is_ a bit thick in here isn't it?"

Harry nodded, and set the flowers down gingerly on top of the stack of papers on the table. Ron had bent down to gather up the groceries off the floor, and Harry spared a moment to admire the way Ron's old jeans cupped his arse.

"How long do you think we should wait before fire-calling Ginny's flat?" Harry had learned to defer to Ron over the years on gauging Hermione's moods. The irony of this, given what their relationship had been like at Hogwarts, was not lost on him.

"This time I'd say it won't matter how long we wait if the flat still looks like this when she gets back. I'll finish putting away these groceries, if you'll start on the bathroom. She's not wrong 'bout that mold. I think it was watching me shower last night."

Harry grinned. "Nah, mate - that was me."

Ron just rolled his eyes. "Tosser."

Chuckling, Harry made his way back towards the loo that the three shared.

It was one of the only real draw-backs to their flat, which was in a great neighborhood. The area was full of young, bohemian witches and wizards. Dean and Seamus lived just half a block away, in what Dean liked to refer to as "a real artist's garret." Seamus preferred to call it a "fecking hole," but Harry knew he actually loved it. Their rent was completely affordable, and the landlord didn't care what they did, so long as "it still has four outside walls and a roof when you're ready to move on."

But it only had the one bathroom.

Harry was a bit surprised that Hermione hadn't managed to locate a spell that would let her add a bathroom on to the smallest bedroom that she'd claimed for her office. If such a spell existed, and Harry was almost certain that it did (after all, the Burrow's organic architecture had been designed and executed by magic), Hermione hadn't bothered to find and cast it.

Harry started gathering up the dirty laundry and wet towels, chucking them all out of the bathroom and into their laundry hamper. He went to start gathering up the trash when he saw something that made him stop in his tracks.

With shaking hands, he picked the little white box up off of the floor, where it had fallen out of the over-flowing trash bin. He was certain that it hadn't been there when he'd stumbled through in a pre-coffee haze earlier that morning. Mechanically, he glanced up at Hermione's British Museum Calendar (Wizarding Edition) and quickly scanned for those little red check marks that Ron had mentioned. Not seeing any on the current month's page, he quickly flipped back to the month before.

Nothing.

On the page before _that_ , he found what he was looking for, but it had been very early on in the month. Counting, he realized that according to Hermione's neat and obsessive record keeping, she hadn't had a period for 8 weeks.

Feeling suddenly light-headed, he sat down hard on the closed lid of the commode. "Ron?" his voice came out in a squeak, and he cleared his throat. "Ron!"

After a moment, Ron appeared at the door. "What is it? Are you-?" He trailed off as he saw the box in Harry's hand. "What's that?"

Silently, Harry held up the box so Ron could clearly see the words "Home Pregnancy Test" written across the front in cheerful pink letters. His eyes went round and he sat heavily on the edge of the tub. "Did she? Is she? What?"

"I-," Harry cleared his throat. "I didn't find the test, just the box. But the calendar..." he gestured towards the wall.

Ron's freckles were standing out in stark relief on his white face. "She's?"

Harry reached out and grabbed Ron's arm. "I think one of us is going to be a father."

"That's-" Ron's face suddenly broke into a fierce grin. "Bloody brilliant! And don't be an arse, we're _both_ going to be fathers."

Harry found himself grinning back. He had been wondering if he or Ron ought to offer to marry her, and if one of them did - whether or not things would have to change between the three of them. He'd managed to fill the moment up with so much worry that he hadn't really stopped to process the fact that Hermione - their Hermione - was going to be having a baby.

He leaned forward and kissed Ron hard on the mouth. "We're going to be dads! Let's get this sty cleaned up so we can bring our girl home."

Ron was still grinning, even as he stood up to move out of Harry's way. "I'll finish up in the kitchen, and get dinner sorted. Why don't you deal with this, and maybe work on our room some." He waggled his eyebrows, "And change the sheets, yeah?"

The two of them hit the mess in the flat with far more enthusiasm than they'd shown before. Harry clearly remembered Hermione's exclamation that, "we cannot keep living like this!" Her reactions this afternoon were beginning to make a bit more sense. Entirely too many cleaning charms later, the flat was presentable and dinner was bubbling away on the stove.

Ron had surprised both Harry and Hermione with his talents in the kitchen. He'd laughed and pointed out that Molly Weasley was not likely to let one of her boys leave home without at least rudimentary cooking skills. Hermione had tartly inquired where those cooking skills might have been while she was serving them badly spelled mushrooms during the war, but Ron had just grinned.

Harry set the table, and put Hermione's flowers in a vase. Once everything was as ready as they could get it, Harry got the floo powder and called over to Ginny's flat.

After a few moments, Ginny's scowling head appeared in the fire grate. "What in Merlin's name have you two done now? Hermione's been over here crying off and on all bloody afternoon."

"Hullo to you too, Gin. May I speak with Hermione please?"

Ron knelt down next to Harry and scowled back at his sister. "Oy, Gin. Save the lecture and let us talk to her."

"I don't know that I should. I don't know what you two did, but it's really upset her."

Ron and Harry exchanged guilty glances. "It's really more what we didn't do that's at issue. Look, just tell her that we _need_ to talk to her, alright? Tell her we, uh, cleaned the bathroom."

Ginny looked over their shoulders at the sitting room of their flat. "Looks like you've done more than that. Hold on, I'll see if she'll talk to you."

After several tense moments, while Harry nervously worried that Hermione might not be ready to see them yet, Ginny came back to the floo. "She says she'll be home in about ten minutes. Be careful with her. She really seems to be off-kilter. Good luck - and if you lot send her back here in that state again, I'll take off your ears and serve them to you in a soup!"

And with that she was gone.

Harry followed Ron back into the kitchen. "Ron, what are going to do if she decides she doesn't want to raise a family with the Lost Boys?"

"I still don't know what you two are on about, as neither of us are lost. But she won't do it mate. She loves us. We love her. We're already a family. This just... it just makes it more real, yeah? I mean, you and I - we're good blokes, hold steady jobs. We're a bit bent, but she's never held that against us. We just need to, I don't know, pull it together. Prove to her that we can keep a house clean enough for a baby. We'll take care of her, just like we've always done."

Harry felt his throat close up. He still couldn't believe, after all these years how incredibly lucky he'd been to find the two of them. He started to say so, when he heard a noise coming from behind him.

Hermione was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, with silent tears running down her face.

"Hermione?"

"Look, love we're sorry. We just-"

She held up her hand to stop them, and walked into the room.

"Hermione, before you say anything, I want you to know we love you."

She smiled, "I know you do, Harry. I know you both do. I love you, too."

Ron put his hand on Hermione's stomach, with a look of wonder on his face. Harry knew what he must be thinking. _Our baby._ "Are you?"

She nodded and smiled, covering Ron's hand with her own. "I'd planned to tell you two tonight. I'd only just taken the test this morning."

Harry added his hand to Ron's and Hermione's, and the three stood together, linked.


End file.
